Summers in Supino

by Maria Coletta McLean

  The next morning, we found a more European-style pensione where our meals were included in the price. Bob said, “If Joe heard how much this place charges, he’d turn our Supino house into a permanent pensione.”

  “You know, Joe and Angela are celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary this year,” I said. “I thought I’d keep my eye out for something special. Maybe a liqueur set or a hand-blown glass vase. What do you think?”

  “I think you’re going to have a hard time explaining how you bought a gift made in Venice, without admitting that we were here.”

  “Joe’s pretty agreeable if we bring a gift for Angela or Marco. He doesn’t grill us on the price or say, ‘What you bring this for?’”

  In a tiny shop, we found a beautiful wine decanter and six glasses, all hand-blown in the colours of a Venetian sunset. Bob did not say “Troppo” when I showed him the price, even though we both knew it was.

  On our last evening, we found a gondolier half-asleep in his gondola parked in a small canal. “Come back in half an hour,” he suggested, tipping his straw hat over his eyes, so we had a glass of prosecco at a nearby bar and then returned. At first, we were part of a flotilla of gondolas out on the grand canal, with several gondoliers serenading the tourists with “O Sole Mio” as the cameras clicked and whirred, but, as the sun began its descent, our gondolier steered us into a smaller canal, and another and another, so that by the time the sun had set, we were in the dark heart of a Venice so silent we could hear the touch of the gondolier’s oar on the still water and the drizzle of the water as it dripped back into the canal.

  In the morning we left Venice, picked up our rental car in the piazza, and drove south to Supino. As we returned home to the village, we were as carefree as a couple of teenagers, racing down the autostrada with the windows wide open and our secret side trip to Venice safely behind us. We stopped at the bar without a name just before the Quattro Strade.

  “Hey,” said the bartender, “I know you. Espresso senza zucchero, right?”

  “Sì,” said Bob, apparently one of the few visitors to the bar who ordered his coffee senza zucchero — without sugar.

  “I thought so,” added the bartender. “The Summer Supinese. Welcome back.” He slid a saucer full of biscotti down the counter. “My wife made these.”

  “We’ll be home in half an hour,” said Bob as we pulled out of the parking lot half an hour later, but we were stopped by a flock of sheep changing pastures. The shepherd tipped his hat to us when the last straggler was in the field, and we began the ascent into Supino. We passed the Kennedy Bar and stopped at the red light on the hill. A wide plastic ribbon was strung across the street. On a small piece of paper, stapled to the ribbon, was an X.

  Bob made a U-turn back to the Kennedy Bar, a left onto via case nuove, the street of new houses, and around behind the Bar Italia. At via d’Italia, there was another ribbon and another slip of paper waving at us. Bob made a second U-turn and we headed up the mountain to the unnamed street that connects the mountain road to the water fountain at the top of via condotto vecchio. The road was open, but no one was filling water jugs. We parked on the street across from our house and began unloading the car.

  “Finalmente,” Angela called out the window. “Leave that stuff in the house. Hurry up. The festa . . .” The six o’clock church bells blocked the rest of the sentence. “. . . And, Maria, don’t forget to take your sweater.”

  No one ever told us the locations of the festas. We simply followed the villagers down the street. As Joe said, “Everyone goes.” Today we walked toward the centre of the village and waited at the traffic light. There was a large red plastic ribbon tied around the light and a small white paper that said, “Mostra dell’Azalea.” My father had told me that the azalea flower grows particularly well in Supino — something about the minerals in the soil, the elevation of the village, and the rainfall — so the villagers hold a festival every spring to celebrate. Someone beeped and we stepped aside: a city truck rumbled past, five or six azalea plants in large tin tubs rattling in the open back.

  “Those plants come from near the quattro strade,” said the flower-shop man. “People who live there can winter the azalea in their sheds. That’s the problem. Town people don’t have enough space. They have to keep pruning. Keep the plants small. The outsiders transplant to larger pots and the azaleas grow as big as bushes. People who live outside of town — what do you call that? The suburbs? If you live in the suburbs of Supino, you have the advantage when it comes to size.”

  “Is there a prize for the biggest azalea?” I asked.

  “Prize? It’s not a contest. It’s a show. You know, like you have in Canada, a flower show.”

  The light changed and we carried on, past the butcher, the baker, and up to the piazza across from the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore. Here, at the top of the hill, was an intersection of three streets and a policewoman. She was allowing cars to travel down the hill to the Kennedy Bar, and beyond to the quattro strade, but she wasn’t permitting the cars to turn into the village centro. The policewoman was arguing that point with a man with a red face and a blue Fiat.

  The third street leads past the statue that honours soldiers killed in the two world wars, then past the barber, the shop that sells men’s shirts, the stone steps that guide you to the oldest part of the village, the store that sells postcards but not stamps, the City Hall, and up to the third piazza at the Church of San Pietro. The street was overflowing with azaleas in every shade, from palest pink to red-hot fuchsia, crammed into metal washtubs, terra cotta planters, cement pots, tins, and plastic pails. Every size from a two-litre olive-oil tin to a square-metre washtub was represented. And the villagers, dressed in their Sunday best, paraded among the plants, admiring and comparing.

  Bob took a few photos from the bottom of the street, trying to capture the abundance of plants and people. “It’s no use,” he said. “You can’t really catch it in a four-by-six.”

  We wove our way to the top of the hill, where Joe was helping to set up tables in front of the church.

  “What are the tables for?” asked Bob.

  Joe made that slight circular motion with his hand. “Pizza,” he said. “Vino, taralli cookies, and ginettes . . . Luigi — he lives over there — we put the beer table in his cantina to keep it cool. The peanut roaster comes. We put a few chairs for the old people. You have this in Toronto, no?”

  “We have a spring garden show,” I began, “but it’s indoors.”

  “Sure, sure. Too cold to have it on the street.”

  But it was so much more than the weather that made the difference. Here in Supino, there were no posters advertising the flower show, because everyone knew it was held on the first Sunday in May, and people of all ages came out to celebrate the azalea flowers in bloom. It was a simple thing to close off the main street every spring with a red plastic ribbon and a hand-printed sign with the letter X. Several artists had set up among the plants with easels or sketchpads, a tray of watercolours or charcoals. There were no vendor permits, special liquor licenses, or food inspectors in sight. Elisabetta, who was confined to a wheelchair in an apartment on the square, could lower a basket packed with squares of thick pizza wrapped in waxed paper. Anyone could take a piece and call up, “Buona, Elisabetta,” knowing that Elisabetta’s pizza was thick with sweet tomato sauce and topped with a basil leaf from her balcony garden. People put a euro or two in the empty basket before she hoisted it back up.

  All the houses and apartments that overlooked the square had azalea plants on their windowsills or doorsteps, and someone had even placed a small red azalea on the windowsill of a deserted house. City trucks drove to the outskirts of Supino to pick up the plants for the show. Local villagers carried their own flowers to the street and brought the larger pots by wheelbarrow. Later the Supino band would play its usual repertoire of songs, and couples would dance on the cobblestones. There’d
be fireworks set off behind the church and visible from everywhere in the village. Bob and I would walk home, hand in hand, on cobblestone streets lit by Supino stars. Angela would call “Buonanotte!” from her kitchen window.

  In our back bedroom, which overlooked the ravine and the mountain, we’d lift our bed carefully and tiptoe it across the room. Even though Angela had warned us that the night air was damp and we shouldn’t sleep beneath the open window, we pushed the shutters wide to the night sky. In the morning, we’d return the bed to its assigned place, but tonight, we’d sleep beneath the light of the Big and Little Dipper framed in our window.

  Our youngest daughter, Kathryn, usually accompanied us on our annual trips back to the village, but this year she’d stayed in Toronto to write her grade 11 exams, and now we drove into Rome to pick her up at the airport. As soon as we returned to the village, Kathryn reconnected with a group of Supinese teenagers. She soon knew about all the markets in the villages that surrounded Supino: Saturday for Ferentino, Thursday for Frosinone, a different day for both of the neighbouring hilltop villages of Patrica and Morolo, and some days a market on the road that leads to Terracina and the beach. That market featured beach essentials like towels, umbrellas, plastic pails and shovels, sunblock, various fresh fruit, sandals, bottled water, bikinis, and, by mid-July, watermelon.

  In the village, the teenagers took over the water fountain area in the evenings, listening to music and talking. Villagers would come to fill their water jugs and grandmothers hung out of kitchen windows that overlooked the street and the fountain piazza, so the teenagers, like everyone else, were always under someone’s gaze. During the summer, rock bands or Italian pop singers performed at one of the piazzas for the teenagers; other nights, some of the young people played in their own bands at restaurants and bars in the area.

  One afternoon we were sitting on our front steps, Bob and I watching the pedestrians go by, Kathryn sketching the pale blue chicory flower growing in a tin can on the windowsill of a deserted house across the street.

  “Davide’s band is playing in Ferentino tonight,” she said. “Is it okay if I go?”

  Davide was the son of our next-door neighbour Peppe. On the day that Kathryn arrived in the village, Peppe had asked Davide to show her around and Davide had pulled up on his motorcycle, passed Kathryn a spare helmet, and they’d roared off. He’d given Kathryn the little tour of Supino on the first day of her arrival and he’d come by every day since. Kathryn had loaned him some CDs; he brought his artwork over to show her; they discussed books he’d read in his English literature class at Rome University. They were both interested in photography and the same kind of music.

  “How are you getting to Ferentino?” I said. The town was half an hour away.

  “A few cars . . . you know,” said Kathryn, and she used the circular hand motion so common in the village.

  “What time does the band play? What time will you get back?”

  “She’ll be fine,” said Bob. “Everyone’s always watching anyway.”

  “Here in Supino they’re watching. I don’t know about Ferentino.”

  “Don’t worry, Maria,” called Angela from her kitchen window. “My girl’s going. Marco too. It’s okay, Caterina can go.”

  Bob made the circular hand motion. “You know what?” he said. “I’ll take you somewhere different for dinner tonight. We’ll go to the restaurant in the woods.”

  “I don’t know if it even exists, Bob. It might be a joke. Think about it — seafood in the woods?”

  “Angela,” called Bob. “Have you ever eaten at the seafood restaurant in the woods?”

  “Restaurant?” repeated Angela, as if the very word was foreign.

  That night at eight, instead of heading off to our usual places, the dining room at the Hotel Dalma or the restaurant at the Pensione Bompiani, we drove to the Kennedy Bar, past the hardware store, and to the second street where the blue sign, “Calcio,” was nailed onto a fence post. As soon as we turned onto that street, if indeed a path can be called a street, the roadway was pitch dark. The only light came when we passed a driveway where a small box was cemented to a pillar that supported a wrought-iron gate. In the small box, a dim light bulb illuminated the owner’s name.

  “This can’t be the right road,” I said, but Bob assured me, “Joe said the restaurant’s past the soccer field and we haven’t passed the soccer field yet.”

  We heard the sounds of soccer fans before we saw the floodlights. There were more lights on that field than on the entire via condotto vecchio. But as soon as we passed the field, we were back in the darkness.

  “Does this road actually go anywhere or do we have to turn around to get back to town?” I asked.

  “I think it connects to the street where Joe said the organic farmers live — look.”

  Two small lights illuminated the box mounted on the stone pillars, showing the owner’s name: “Guerrino alla Selvotta.” Bob stopped and rolled down his window: the chirping of crickets, the crunch of gravel, and the slam of a car door. From deep in the woods came the scent of burning wood and the clatter of dishes and silverware. Bob backed up and swung into the gravel parking lot. There were a few other cars, but no lights of course. The sky was littered with stars. Hand in hand we walked across the gravel and up the stone steps to an outdoor patio where dozens of slender beech trees shared space with planters of geraniums and trailing ivy and a dozen tables and chairs. Customers sitting at half the tables: no waiter in sight.

  We walked into the restaurant, where a woman was rolling out balls of dough on a floured counter and, behind her, a young man was pulling a bubbling pizza from the oven. He slid the pizza onto a plate and called, “Luigi.” A moustached waiter grabbed the plate and was gone as quickly as he appeared.

  “Too crowded in here,” said Bob, and we returned to the quiet of the terrace, choosing a table near the window so the light from the restaurant shone on the white linen. “Just in case there’s a menu,” he said. “We’ll be able to read it.”

  “I’ve never seen a menu in Supino, unless you count that chalkboard listing the specials at the Bompiani.”

  “You mean the specials that you try to order and the waiter wags his finger at you?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Joe said a menu’s a North American idea,” said Bob. “It makes no sense. Nobody who lives in Supino needs a menu to tell them what’s growing in the garden. If the artichokes are ready or the peaches are ripe, that’s what you’re going to get in the restaurant. Why waste money on a menu?”

  A young boy, no more than 12, wearing the waiter’s uniform of black trousers and immaculate white shirt, placed a bottle of water on our table. “Acqua frizzante?” he asked, and was gone before we could answer. Bob poured the bubbly water and I watched a waiter balance a gigantic tray through the door and onto a serving table set up nearby. The young boy took plates of seafood antipasto to one table, dishes of spaghetti with clams to a second, and plates of grilled trout to a third. Bob didn’t eat fish.

  “What are you going to order?” I asked.

  “I memorized it from the phrase book,” he said. “Senza pesce. Without fish.”

  The young boy was back. “Vino?” he asked as he placed a bottle of white on the table and pulled the cork. “Pane?” he added, putting the breadbasket on our table. The boy put a cruet of dark green olive oil in front of Bob and made the circular hand motion between the bread and the oil. “Buon appetito,” he said.

  The waiter soon arrived without a menu. Instead, he offered two plates with tiny shrimps, scallops, and calamari all heaped on a bed of arugula.

  “Senza pesce,” said Bob, using the finger wag.

  “Senza pesce?” repeated the waiter.

  “Sì, senza pesce,” repeated Bob.

  A shrug from the waiter before he carried Bob’s plate back inside, calling out to the kitchen, “Senz
a pesce.” Two minutes later he was back with a new plate: cheese, salami and some other cured meats, olives, pickled vegetables, and a lone clamshell holding a quartered lemon. “Signor,” the young waiter instructed, “antipasto della montagna.”

  “Appetizers of the mountain,” I translated.

  Two businessmen sat down at the table beside us. One waved down the waiter and ordered Asti Spumante. They lit up cigars. The young boy arrived with an ice bucket and the waiter twirled the champagne bottle before wrapping it in a cloth. “Attenzione,” he called just before he popped the cork. Those few seconds of silence while we waited for the explosive sound were followed by the loud voices of the two men. Between the scent of their cigars and the sound of their excited talk, the night took on a more hectic feel.

  Bob put his hand on mine. “If you listen carefully, you can hear the crickets chirping.”

  Beside us, one man checked his watch, drained his glass, and scraped his chair back. The other peeled off a few bills and called to the boy. A quick glance at Bob’s hand on mine, a quick conversation, and the men were gone. The boy brought the champagne bottle to our table. “From the signore.”

  We drank leftover champagne from Supinese strangers; the waiter brought us linguine with tomato sauce. He followed that with a barbecued trout for me, and a spiedini for Bob. When Bob inspected the barbecued meat on the wooden stick, the waiter immediately reassured, “Senza pesce.” Tossed salad arrived without us ordering it. We finished off the champagne. The waiter decided to top off our meal with a dessert of cooked cream covered with wild berries.

  “Signor Bob?” asked a man. “I am Guerrino. Call me Gary. You must be Mrs. Bob. Sorry to hear about your father. My family didn’t know him. He was a mountain man and we are of the woods. How do you like my little place?”